Wealth

In the time when there was no name for the country, before even it was Aotearoa, for The Land of the Long White Cloud is the view from the West but the people actually came from the East, out of  the sun.

Hone was walking along the beach foraging for shellfish when in the distance he saw the dark shape of something apparently washed up. What Hone thought this thing was is difficult to say, but in today’s terms it was a pilot whale, about four metres long.

To Hone, this was a massive find, a huge amount of easy protein – like McDonalds on his very doorstep, only free!

What would Hone do with his find? He had three options.

Hone decided that he would keep the whale for himself, so on the high tide mark he made a fire and set up a camp. He cut off a few steaks and began to spit roast them but before he could savour them, the gulls came in and began to feed on his prize. Try as he might, his shooing was ineffective.

Tane came along and wanted a share of the meat, but Hone fought him to drive him off, copping a few bruises and cuts himself.

Village dogs came along so Hone took a large stick of driftwood to drive them off, meanwhile his fire went out and the gulls stole his half cooked steaks. The dogs were hungry and persistent so Hone became exhausted defending his prize.

Tane told the others and they came to take a share! They brought weapons with them and Hone found that if the wanted to hold on to his newfound wealth, he needed security. But too late, he was easily overpowered and he lost it all.

Otherwise: Hone decided to become entrepreneurial and when Tane came along he asked him to gather some workers from their village. They would cut the beast up, dry the meat and keep the teeth and bones for jewellery. They would get women to do the work because they will be afraid of them and they would under-pay them in meat.

Hone was to take half because he found the beast and Tane could have a quarter with the rest split between five workers. Actually Hone and Tane wouldn’t need to do any work, just supervision and marketing.

This was finger calculations and before money was invented so the currency was greenstone, feather cloaks, slaves and some fun with women.

The five women had friends, womenfolk who came along to help their sisters and they stole meat for their families and very soon the carcass was bare bones. The village people gorged and no meat was saved, much was actually wasted.

Hone and Tane tried to salvage the teeth and bones, but they didn’t have the tools or expertise so decided to let the gulls, flies and ants clean them first. But after a time, they went back to a vacant beach. The valuable teeth and bones had already been collected.

Hone and Tane became a laughing stock because their greed had not paid off and the village people had their way.

Trying again: Hone ran back to the village with Tane, who shared Hone’s excitement. Food for all! As a community the village people went to the beach to carefully butchered the carcass. Some of the meat they retained to cook fresh, some was dried to be stored and some was smoked over a Manuka fire, preserving it for later use.

Valuable sinews were saved by the women and the teeth were extracted by the men. The bones were left to be cleaned by the local wildlife and later taken to the village to be used for bartering with other villages or for the village craftspeople to make jewellery and weapons.

Hone gained the respect of his village and received a bonus share of fresh, dried and smoked meat.

Today, on a global scale, come 2016 one percent of the world’s population will hold fifty percent of the global wealth!

Whatever happened to the trickle-down theory where the wealthy caused the circulation of money to benefit all?

Statistics and bland statements are not necessarily an accurate measure and in this case estimating an average is cockeyed because of the burgeoning populations in third world counties, most of whom live on a subsistence regime, and others, truly need regular food and heath aid.

Never-the-less, a system where the rich are becoming richer seems not the wisest of models nor very sustainable.